This is a pilot study designed to explore the link between specific organizational characteristics of educational systems and the provision of equality of educational opportunities. In order to maximize variations in both the independent and dependent variables, 4 European countries (Britain, France, Germany and Switzerland) have been selected. The attainment literature is criticized for not including contextual variables and the organizational dimension is suggested as particularly relevant in the case of education. High centralization, formalization, differentiation and stratification are hypothesized to be related to the provision of equality of educational opportunities. Size of educational systems is used as a control variable. The dependent variable is broken into equality of opportunity and equality of results (attendance of a school as opposed to getting a degree). Aggregate data on the independent variables will be gathered during the pilot phase (3 months). These data will be obtained from documents and official records as well as conversations with selected high officials. The availability of individual data will be ascertained and the possibility of building aggregate time-series will also be explored during the pilot-phase. These time-series would permit a testing of the proposition within each country while the data gathered during the pilot stage will make a between-educational system testing possible only.